June 1, 2007 Bike Education with A Woman's Touch By: Naomi Bloom |
The email message from Mary Paquet came in about 5:00 pm on April 22. She would be teaching a FREE street and road skills class for women only at Google on Friday and Saturday, May 4 and 5. A Licensed Cycling Instructor (LCI) certified by the League of American Bicyclists (LAB), Mary has been instructing volunteering and instructing with the ACTC Academy and the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition (SVBC) for years.
So I knew this class would be a good one. I just had to check this out! So I responded right away: Could I come along for the ride? A quick visit to the SVBC web site revealed that this was just one of the free classes offered this spring and summer. Since bike coalitions are notoriously poor, where does money came from to sponsor such a program? The answer seemed to be the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA). News to me, since VTA's publicity materials, including their web site, make no mention of sponsoring BikeEd programs or funding SVBC. Not even a link to SVBC. "We've been talking with VTA for quite a while," SVBC Executive Director Corinne Winter told me. "They're responsible for helping Santa Clara County reduce car trips and helping develop pedestrian and bicycling facilities. We hope we can show there is a real demand for these classes and that VTA will sponsor this kind of thing ongoing." The Google connection Riding almost every day to work, Deb saw only the male-type guys out there on the road with her. "What's up with that?" she asked herself. "Even at Google most of the bike commuters are male engineers with attitude," she told me. "Women might attend a Street Skills class but they were intimidated. So I decided to try a women-only class, with the on-bike Road I course included." Arriving at the Google campus, I discovered that it's quite spread out around the Shoreline area of Mountain View. And I noticed in front of every building a bike rack loaded with yellow bikes; any employee can use them to get around campus. In the classroom I met SVBC's new BikeEd Coordinator, Carridad Taber. She gave a quick rundown of SVBC's other education projects, like lunchtime commuter workshops for people who want to do BTW Day for the first time, and a middle school program that will reach about 5,000 kids this year. About 12 women attended the Street Skills afternoon class. Mary introduced three instructor assistants -- Nancy Smith and Susan Francks from ACTC, and Margaret Okuzumi, a longtime SVBC member who rides her folding Dahon just about everywhere. In the round of introductions, we heard that most of the women had traffic "issues." Cynthia bought a new bike, then discovered she's afraid of cars and of making left turns. Ditto for Maria, who bikes to the Google shuttle station but is intimidated about riding ride all the way to her office. Wendy used to ride to work but after her non-profit agency moved, the overpasses "freaked me out." Then there's Gail, who runs and is looking to offset her injuries by taking up the bike. "Everyone seems to be cycling so there must be something good about it," she observes. But she kept falling trying to deal with clipless pedals. Nearly every woman present had a similar tale of woe. Street Skills cram session
The afternoon concluded with a 20-minute video, "Cyclists' Eye View," showing a rider in Long Beach employing the principals demonstrated John's presentation. Some of the discussion that followed including claiming, or "controlling," the lane and avoiding being "doored" by parked cars. I skipped the next day, when the group met for a six-hour on-bike session, including a four-mile ride on the Stevens Creek Trail and over the busy Highway 101/Shoreline Blvd interchange. More classes to come VTA will sponsor a Street Skills class at Sports Basement in Sunnyvale on June 12. Bonus: a 15% discount on all purchases (with 5% benefiting SVBC)! You can sign up for these and/or future courses with SVBC. Or find out how to bring LCIs to your company in-house "training." Don't live in the South Bay? Bug your local advocacy group to train LCIs and offer similar classes. It's worth the effort, to educate new riders, get more commuters on the road, and give the "old pros" like me an eye-opening refresher. |
Altamont Commuter Express (ACE) |